County should ‘stay the course’ on mine project
Ihave spent 55 years in historic preservation, including serving as keeper of the National Register of Historic Places and working with states, cities, counties, tribes and others to preserve important historic places. I have heard every imaginable excuse for sacrificing history, including the cost of hazardous material remediation — so often cited as to be cliché. Frequently, the actual reason for slacking off in preservation is greed, but usually it is lack of vision or fortitude. Among the better projects I have seen anywhere is Santa Fe County’s decision to preserve the 800-year-old turquoise mines of Mount Chalchihuitl. This is a citizen-driven project of enormous importance and quality, but word is that this week the County Commission may renege on that promise for that same lame excuse. Under a new president, funding for such public projects may well become available. Stay the course, commissioners. Don’t fail us now.
Jerry L. Rogers Santa Fe
Save the mine
A resolution before the Santa Fe County Commission on Tuesday, Sept. 29, could defund permanently the Mount Chalchihuitl project. The would mean the pollution from an old adjacent lead mine would not be cleaned up; Mount Chal, the noted centuries-old Native turquoise mine, would not be acquired, preserved and added to Cerrillos Hills State Park; and lead and arsenic would continue to spread down through private land toward the park. There are no “triggers” in the resolution to even direct a future County Commission to return to the effort, say, under certain conditions.
Santa Fe County and the state Environment Department have just relaunched an effort to work together with the Environmental Protection Agency. Losing the county’s funds (a display of disinterest) might sway both the state and the feds not to help on this.
I agree that now is not a great time for the county to proceed with acquisitions. But I see no need to decide this issue before the election, especially with the possibility of an empowered EPA. Preserving the oldest and largest Native American turquoise mine in North America is of immense educational interest. The Santa Fe County Commission should table this resolution.
Ross Lockridge Cerrillos
The big con
President Donald Trump is the victim — so he says. The truth is, Trump has been a con for decades. He says everyone is against him and all news is fake news, according to his philosophy. He ignores our Constitution because he runs his businesses by his rules (his constitution) because he is lord and ruler in his corporate world and he considers being president is still his world.
One of his most important claims is that he is a proponent and supporter of Social Security and health care. The truth, though, is that before the Supreme Court are his requests — one to essentially eliminate Social Security by 2023 and another to abolish “Obamacare” and take away protection for preexisting conditions.
A last comment: Many Republicans are publicly supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — the late Sen. John McCain’s family and staff, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, conservative columnist George Will and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Republican-backed Lincoln Project has launched devastating television ads against Trump. In Arizona, former Republican Attorney General Grant Woods is a strong Biden supporter. I am encouraged by these actions.
Bill Buchsbaum Santa Fe
Debate preliminaries
If Joe Biden needs to take a drug test, President Donald Trump needs to take truth serum.
Marion Jackson Santa Fe
Get the right numbers
I am writing to bring to light the issue of the Electoral College in the United States of America. From researching this issue, I believe outdated information is used to put into place the numbers generated for each state. As a country, we need to recalibrate. Updated information and statistics are vital to a fair election.
Yvonne Marie Rodriguez Santa Fe
Just the facts
Kudos to Chrysa Wikstrom. Her letter (“Biden is no socialist,” Sept. 16) both beautifully and succinctly laid out the facts.
Susan Noel Española
Why enable him?
Regarding the article from Philip Rucker of the Washington Post (“Angry Trump defends virus deceit,” Sept. 11). As President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, explained, Trump is a heartless con man for whom lying is second, if not first, nature. When he learned of the deadly pandemic in February, he kept quiet and even discounted the pandemic as a “hoax.” He claimed he didn’t want to alarm the American people, though his presidency has consisted of alarming the same American people with lies about peaceful demonstrators and how they wanted to turn America into a “socialist” country.
It’s hard to estimate how many Americans have died needlessly from the pandemic because of this deceitful administration, but more than 200,000 have died, many of them needlessly, if we look at Europe in comparison. We know Trump is a moral monster incapable of feeling for anyone besides himself (and possibly his family). But even more tragic is that Republicans enable this moral monster. What does that make them?
Roger Carasso professor emeritus California State University, Northridge Santa Fe
Sowing confusion
On Sept. 7, I applied to the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office for an absentee ballot. That day, I received an email response from them stating that I had been successful in this endeavor. Since then, my wife and I have received, via the U.S. Postal Service, two notifications that one or more members of the household might not be registered to vote and yesterday, we both received applications for absentee ballots.
I have been told by staff at the clerk’s office that those mailings do not come from them. My question then is: Could this be a direct attempt to sow distrust and confusion in the election system and to stress the Postal Service in the days running up to Nov. 3? We should try to ensure that any communication concerning voting should come only from our County Clerk’s Office and that any other players are banned by law from interfering in the process.
Phillip T. Kehoe Santa Fe